With the separation of call and media processing (e.g. voice over Internet protocol (VoIP)) combined with the distribution of call state across multiple elements (e.g., session initiation protocol (SIP) call stateful proxies), hang calls associated with certain failures can no longer be cleared. Specifically, any failure that prevents call release messages to reach call stateful elements would result in the creation of hang calls. Hang calls may have adverse effects on a communication network. For example, the hang calls may consume memory and processing resources of various elements within the network or create a lack of synchronization between elements within the network. This can have an adverse impact on subsequent calls within the network.